Feedback: Kwame Kilpatrick was bad for Detroit, but not to blame for its bankruptcy

Oct. 10, 2013

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick / Associated Press file

Kwame Kilpatrick will be sentenced today. While he cost the city millions and ran a criminal enterprise out of the mayorís office, readers took to Freep.com to say you canít blame all of Detroitís woes on him:

Look at the numbers and see two possibilities: a city that could have gone into bankruptcy a little earlier, or a little later. When you look at the money, in the early 1960s, automakers spent big money to move their auto plants to the suburbs. In comparison, the Kilpatrick graft is nothing, a scandalous pittance. The elimination of light rail as public transportation ó infrastructure essential to every world class city in the world ó was killed by the auto industry. The city thrived on an industry revived by billions of federal defense dollars and then died slowly after World War II. The Big Three moved jobs to foreign countries to pay cheap labor, leaving Detroiters unemployed. Detroit lived by the sword of the auto companies, and died by the same sword.

John Grant

His crimes didnít deepen the financial crisis as much as they prolonged it. Kwame learned while he was in the State House how lucrative it could be to be Mayor of Detroit. He came into office with a sense of entitlement. He passed out jobs like candy, mostly to unqualified family and friends.

He wasnít the cause of the crisis. He was there to pick over the prime parts of a dying carcass. By the time he came into office, the only thing big or great about the city was its land mass. But, his face will always be prominently shown as what was wrong with Detroit.

James Foster

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich got 14 years. I feel what Kwame did was twice as bad, so 28 years sounds right. Chicago has thrived. Detroit was in serious peril and Kwame came in and pillaged. Itís one thing to joke about the city, but these guys were actually destroying the city. This is not a Democrat thing or a union thing, itís a criminal thing! Itís a moral thing! He enriched himself without a care about the future of the city.